Nightlights

The lights inside houses at night

Are all listening, no sounds

But the nods of passing shadows and

Small sorrows,

Your broken loneliness beneath the lights,

The pale rising of a new day and a soon

Forgotten fog.

I know love and it knows me by

The distance that separates

Wanderer from homemaker, doorknob

From trodden pavement.

Economy of scale

Social marooning, USA,
without ships or transport
an unwalkable distance between
an unhealthy infrastructure,
but expanding. Economy
demands expansion.
Breathlessly growing. So tired.
To survive the day you need water
food, sleep, accessibility.
Walking shoes once but no more.
Once supporting muscle and lifting,
strain and exertion,
the human day to day.
Now specialty cross-training, aerobic activity
outside the day to day.
Marooned by the vastness of this vastest of places.
Contiguous but deserted sprawl.
Infertile and swollen, greasy and oiled,
who can inhabit or survive can sit still.